A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Chapter 35 Summary & Analysis

Christmas is a week away. Francie’s fourteenth birthday has passed. Johnny hasn’t spoken to the family in more than two weeks. Yesterday, he came in during supper, looked at them as though to say something, then went into the bedroom. He comes and goes at odd hours. When he’s home, he lies on the bed, fully clothed, with his eyes shut. Katie goes “white and quiet,” as though she’s “carrying a tragedy within herself.” She takes on an extra job in the week before Christmas, selling coffee and sandwiches to shopgirls at Gorling’s Department Store.

Katie goes home that night with a bundle of wood blocks, condensed milk, and three bananas. She tells Francie and Neeley that they’ll have oatmeal again for dinner. With the bananas it’s not so bad. Then, Francie asks Katie to play something on the piano so that it will feel like they are in a restaurant. The children are “almost happy.” The kitchen is warm, they are fed, and their mother’s piano playing makes them feel “safe and comfortable.” While they’re talking, someone pounds on the door. Francie knows it’s Johnny. They then hear his voice, demanding to be let in.

Johnny lunges inside. His tuxedo is dirty and his children have never seen it look so. It looks as though he’s been lying in the gutter. His cold, red hands are trembling and his derby hat is bashed in. He says that he isn’t drunk. He also says that he’s been thrown out of the Waiter’s Union. He says that they call him “a drunk and a bum” and that people laugh at him when he sings. Johnny sobs as though he can’t stop and Francie edges the door, wanting to run to the bedroom and hide her head under the pillow. Katie orders her to stay. She then says that she will stay with Johnny for a while and that the children should go back to whatever they were doing, such as talking. Neeley asks Francie if she wants to talk about olden times; she says “no.”